Finding a Replacement for Notify.gov: Ensuring Continued SMS Outreach for Medicaid Populations
Early this month (March 2025) it became apparent Government was discontinuing the Notify.gov messaging platform. Notify.gov was developed as a tool for government and state agencies to deliver outreach to Medicaid populations to inform and remind them about benefits and other important health topics. Departmental agencies that were using this tool have a gap in messaging capabilities, which will impact hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations. Health engagement is a complex area and there are many different technologies and approaches to deliver text communications. This blog will highlight the features of Notify.gov’s platform capabilities and how agencies can replace them.
Text messaging is broadly recognized as one the most efficient and effective way to outreach to populations, driven by broad levels of adoption and high reach rates. Compared to email, SMS typically has 3x as high engagement rates1. SMS is particularly effective reaching Medicaid populations; across income level, racial and language subgroups SMS is adopted at comparative levels to the overall population.The effectiveness of SMS was a foundational driver for the Notify.gov initiative- to provide easy access to basic health SMS messaging capabilities for federal agencies and US state, local, territorial, or tribal governments that administer or deliver federally funded programs.
Notify.gov’s texting platform was launched in late 2023 and provided a way to deliver one-to-many text (SMS) outreach related to health policy changes, enrollment deadlines, and health advisories at no cost to the organization doing the outreach. It has been adopted by several state agencies to deliver communications across a range of topics, such as Medicaid redetermination, parental support services, and healthy nutrition resources. The tool was a web-based self-service messaging platform that allowed users to upload lists of members to target, build communication programs and then send SMS outreach. As is standard with any messaging platform, there was basic reporting capabilities around delivery rate and clicks when hyperlinks were embedded in messages, and user functionality levels. Several capabilities were specifically healthcare related- including data security features to meet HIPAA compliance requirements and the ability to send messages across 30 different languages. Language capabilities are important when engaging Medicaid populations to align with the diversity across populations and meet various state-based requirements to provide communications in the spoken language of the member.
Notify.gov’s platform was offered at no-cost as a driver for agencies to adopt the high-value SMS channel. Organizations received access to the self-service tool, a dedicated toll-free number and the ability to send up to 250,000 messages a year. The message limit demonstrated the tool was targeted towards smaller organizations.
With the sudden news of the Notify.gov is being shut down, organizations that were using the tool have immediate gaps in the communication and engagement strategies. Other organizations that were in the process of developing programs leveraging Notify.gov’s platform must now look for alternative solutions to include SMS messaging onto their strategies. While mPulse does not provide ‘no-cost’ options, mPulse has a broad set of engagement capabilities that can be configured to meet the needs of Notify.gov users.
A foundational capability of mPulse’s platform is user-friendly self-service capabilities to set-up and deploy 1-way and 2-way messaging programs. mPulse’s platform is fully healthcare focused, so all areas of the Notify.gov’s capabilities are supported and enterprise performance can comfortably support the scale of programs being sent out on the government platform. The intuitive interface makes it easy for staff to design and deploy messages, track engagement, and analyze results.
In addition, and where appropriate mPulse has robust engagement capabilities developed to support the requirements of the broad set of healthcare organizations we partner with. Features include:
- 2-way and conversational AI messaging capabilities
- Healthcare specific content and behavioral science-led program design
Any government organization that is impacted by the Notify.gov shutting down and is actively exploring alternative tolls should reach out to mPulse at info@mpulse.com.
1. https://www.mailmodo.com/guides/sms-vs-email-statistics/
2. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2011/09/19/how-americans-use-text-messaging/
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